Meet Kate Jennings – Your ‘Go To’ Executive Coach for Senior Leaders
Kate Jennings is a highly experienced Executive Coach, with now international accreditation at ‘Professional Certified Coach level’ and trading under her own name. She talks to business journalist, Al Gibson about her new coaching season and how she can impact the careers of C-Suite leaders in diverse sectors.
Kate has been described as a ‘Thinking Partner’ who draws from her wealth of experience, often specialising in coaching Healthcare executives or highly degreed individuals in the field of Academic and Scientific Research. However, she is passionate about “enabling leaders at all levels to excel.”
AG: For close on 19 years, you’ve worked in your own learning consultancies along with a team of other executive coaches. You are best known for running 3D Professional Development, now you have shifted to Kate Jennings Coaching Ltd, why have you made this change?
Kate Jennings: I’ve always and quite deliberately had a corporate and impersonal brand. However, that no longer reflects the kind of work I do and what I want to achieve in future. Previously I resisted using my name and avoided publishing photographs of myself. I now realise that it’s much better for me to step out from behind a corporate image and for my company name to better reflect the work I do and the person I am. It’s a much more personal brand. Especially since I have just received my international accreditation as a coach. So, I am now developing my personal brand to reflect the work I do with senior leaders on a person-to-person basis.
AG: Congratulations! Tell us about your international accreditation.
Kate Jennings: Anyone can call themselves a coach these days, so more and more organisations now require minimum levels of accreditation before they will work with you. The gold standard in coaching is the International Coach Federation and they have three levels of accreditation – Associate, Professional and Master.
I went for the Professional Level to offer my clients proof of my experience. It’s quite a prestigious hallmark and is the minimum coaching qualification required by organisations like the NHS and companies of the stature of PWC. To qualify, I’ve had to do hundreds of hours of training and years of coaching. It's a rigorous process, which I found both challenging and rewarding. Having to jump through several hoops including 3-hour exams has certainly upped my game!
The hardest exam comprised of 80 scenarios. You had to choose how you would answer a client in each specific situation, determining the best response and the worse response. With little time to consider the options I found I had to go with my gut instinct. The pass mark is 75% and I am enormously pleased to say that I am now a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coach Federation.
AG: So, this gives you the standing to work with large corporates, which you have done for many years.
Kate Jennings: Yes, I have coached many different corporate clients including the University of Cambridge, the NHS, Astra Zeneca, Macmillan, Balfour Beatty, Waitrose, Claridges and the Environment Agency to name a few. This could be coaching individuals as well as teams.
AG: Tell us about the different levels of coaching that you provide.
Kate Jennings: I coach all kinds of leaders, from someone who's just stepped into a leadership role, up to executive coach level, members of the Board etc. I also provide executive team coaching.
A lot of time spent in businesses is looking at what you’re doing. For example working on a project, client, issue or process. What coaching does is to look at the how. How are you working? What's working and what isn't? How would you like more of / less of from each other. How would we like to work together better?
I coach in 1:1 or group sessions. These can be done face to face or online. I am very comfortable doing virtual coaching, and work with clients across the UK, Europe and further afield.
Classically, the skills that make you brilliant at your job, don't always give you the ability to manage people once you are promoted to executive leadership. This is why leaders who are suddenly faced with a team of people to manage can really benefit from coaching to help increase their self-awareness. There are many executive coach benefits!
Kate Jennings, Executive Coach and ‘Thinking Partner’.
AG: What is your coaching methodology in a nutshell?
Kate Jennings: Coaching helps people to think. It gives clients the space to consider all their challenges or difficulties they may be facing and consider all the options available to them. So, my clients often describe me as a ‘thinking partner’.
Together we explore what their key issues are and what they’d like to get out of coaching. What improvements or changes are they aiming for? What would they like to be different and how can they achieve that? This might be in terms of how their team functions, stepping up into a new role, becoming more strategic, a particularly tricky relationship with key stakeholder etc. We might also look for the issues that are scratching below the surface to understand common themes or patterns of behaviour that are helping or getting in the way. We examine how their personal values are being affected and consider ways forward that are workable.
People know themselves better than anyone else, but they often need this kind of interaction to implement a plan of action. I’m quite a pragmatist, living with both feet on the ground. So, I am committed to helping individuals and teams embrace the real world, not some ideal picture they have in their minds. This enables us to find ways going forward that will help them achieve the changes they wish to see, whatever they may be.
Goals need to be realistic to be achievable. So, we think about the next steps and how we can ensure they commit to do the things we have agreed.
AG: How do you go about making people think?
Kate Jennings: By asking questions that dig a little deeper, encouraging clients to consider the impact of their actions on themselves and other people. We examine different ways of doing things and how diverse scenarios may unfold.
I ask about things that might be getting in the way of their progress. We consider their personal values and whether these have been compromised, or how they can live them out better.
We all know that our behaviour is driven by stuff below the surface, like an iceberg. Asking questions helps get below the surface to look at what's really going on? And finding solutions that are going to work for each individual or collectively as a team. See my blog, Could you do with some thinking space?
AG: Tell us who inspires you.
Kate Jennings: At the moment I enjoy listening to Steve Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO. I’m also inspired by Brené Brown who is an incredible thought-leader and I recommend her podcasts on Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. My reading / listening list changes regularly!
I also like to read regular email updates from James Clear of Atomic Habits. He says tiny changes can deliver remarkable results and I am conscious of this in helping clients to pinpoint the good habits that can help break bad ones, like overcoming procrastination.
One of my favourite quotes is: "We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour". (Steven Covey and others).
This resonates with me as a professional coach because I think so much coaching is about helping people become more self-aware of their behaviours and how they impact others. Most of us have really good intentions, however our behaviour may not always be that great. Developing Emotional Intelligence (EI) with my clients is a key focus of my work.
For example, I may think I’m coming across frustrated in a conversation with my husband while he may think I sound aggressive. That’s because my voice tone comes across sharper than I intend it to be. By being aware of that I can think how to tone it down so my message lands as I’d like it to.
AG: What are your passions? What do you do in your spare time?
Kate Jennings: My passion is personal development. I really enjoy my work because it is an extension of me. I love helping people to find what they're good at and to do those things. Nothing pleases me more when I see my clients becoming better at what they do. That's why I probably will never retire!
Outside work I like getting outdoors and being active, although I've had some tendon/ ligament problems that get in the way of me exercising. Of course, there’s nothing better than chilling in front of a Netflix drama. I've got quite a big, extended family with lots of nephews and I really like seeing them. They range from 4 to 16 and really make me laugh and smile.